For the past month and a half I’ve been working for the Guam Humanities Council, putting together their exhibit “Transitional Table” which opens next week, on Tuesday October 13, at the T. Stell Newman Visitor Center at the entrance to Big Navy. The opening reception is at 6 pm, but if you can’t make it then the exhibit will be open unil November 21st. For anyone interested in history and learning more about Guam’s in particular, I suggest heading down to check it out.

The title itself doesn’t sound very interesting, but the exhibit (gi minagahet) is. Its a combination of a national Smithsonian exhibit that has been brought to Guam, which covers changing food practices in the United States over several centuries. A locally made exhibit, which I did some of the research for has been added to it, which deals with the history of food in the years immediately before, during and after World War II.

I just went down yesterday while the exhibit was being put up and although the space is a bit tight, I still think it’s going to be great. In the middle of the exhibit room the Smithsonian panels have been put up, and along the walls there are interpretative panels dealing with different themes such as prewar food practices, food quotas and occupation, food as resistance, liberation, Chamorro stewards and military service. There are also collections of items, such as military issue fishing hooks which were common on Guam after World War II, (nasa) shrimp traps, machetes and fosinos made by my great-grandfather and grandfather before and during World War II.

You can head to the Guam Humanities Council website for more information.

Just to get you in the mood for the exhibit, I’m pasting below some of the research I gathered for the exhibit, which was used to write the text panels. Its not meant to be completely comprehensive but only provide a slice or a snippet of life. Naturally, there was far too much to be used in the exhibit itself, so I’m considering posting it all of it on my blog No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro just so the information can be out there for those interested in learning more about Chamorros and how they lived or survived during the war.

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Lina’la’ Guagualo’ / Farmer Life

The farming day would usually begin well before dawn when it was still dark out. Farming was mainly the duty of men, and so the father of a family would leave early in the morning, to head for his land, which was often far away from his home. He would take with him, his tools, a machete in a leather bina at his side, with a fosiños slung over his shoulder. For nourishment during the day, he would take a tengguang, or a packed lunch usually consisting of corn tatiyas and a small portion of protein. For refreshment he could bring a canteen or a bengbong, which was a piece of bamboo, cut in such a way that it could act as a container for hanom or tuba.

If the tasks were light, such as weeding or the feeding of animals, he might go alone, on foot or on a bicycle. For more difficult tasks, such as harvesting or clearing a piece of property he might take a bull-cart or a jitney, full of his immediate or extended family. For harvesting days, men, women and children would usually come along, as many hands surely made the labor light for all.

Labor, like most things in prewar Guam, operated on the chenchule’ system of exchange. Well organized villages or extended families would often pool their resources, and spend a day working on one family’s plot, and then move on to another’s the next, and another’s the next. Less organized families still continued this system of reciprocity, where in exchange for working on your farm for one day, I would expect you to work on my for the same amount of time.

Planting would be done by fosinos or by alådu and karabao. With the fosinos, a farmer would make single, small holes for planting, with an alådu and karabao, they would dig hug swaths in which to plant seeds.

Although the soil on Guam was well suited for a wide variety of crops, most Chamorro families planted a similar set of fruits and vegetables, which could sometimes vary based on where their land was located. The northern shallow limestone soil of Guam was ideal for corn, coconut plantations and even coffee, but could not be used for planting rice. A heavy clay soil found throughout the rivers and valleys of central and southern Guam was the best soil on the island, and could be used for almost any crop, most importantly rice.

As corn was the primary staple in the Chamorro diet, most families planted at least one or two acres of it. Acres of banana, papaya, avocado, mangoes, oranges, lemons and limes were also found on most every farm. Smaller patches were also common featuring taro, tapioca, yams, and sweet potatoes. Chamorros had different beliefs about when was the right and wrong times of the year to plant their crops. Most prominently, Chamorros believed that planting corn during the full moon, would result in a small harvest. Planting when the moon was small however would result in an abundant harvest.

If his farm was far from his home, a farmer might remain there for several days before returning home. He could often turn to any livestock on his farm, such as chickens in order to sustain himself, or else forage in the nearby jungle, for easily found crops such as lemmai, suni or yams.

From just a few years age, children, both boys and girls would be brought into the farming life. They would help keep watch over soon to be harvested corn in the middle of night, by helping keep birds and deer away. They would help with the planting and the harvesting and maybe even be given a small plot of their own to tend to. The tending to the different type of livestock that Chamorros had, goats, chicken, karabao, cows and pigs was also something that children would be tasked with, often times right before they left for school and as soon as they arrived at home.

In addition to food crops, which were often eaten, shared with others or bartered for goods, a farmer might also grow some cash crops, such as copra, kapok, tobacco and coffee. Copra and kapok were both goods which the Naval Government of this period would a great deal of emphasis into Chamorros producing in order to sell them to Japanese and American traders.

Although working on the farm was usually the jobs of a husband or men, wives and women often tended their own gardens around the house or underneath it in their bodegas. One of the most notorious members of these gardens was tobacco, a favorite especially amongst elderly Chamorro women. The tobacco could be rolled into paper and smoked, chewed or wrapped with lime in pupulu leaves and chewed along with pugua’.

In the middle of the afternoon, some farmers start making their way home, just in time for the merienda or afternoon meal, and perhaps a nap as well.